Holy Night
by NicolleOrgana
Summary: What happens for Jack immediately following "Silent Night."
1. Chapter 1

Jack stepped off the plane and navigated through the familiar airport an hour outside his hometown, spotting his sister almost immediately when he exited the gate. "Hey there, Jackie," she whispered in his ear when she finally had her arms around him.

"Kimmy." He said, squeezing her back.

"I won't call you Jackie if you don't call me Kimmy," she laughed up at him as they separated. "Deal," he agreed, hitching his carry-on higher on his shoulder as they fell into step, headed toward the baggage claim.

"How are Dan and the kids?" He asked her as they walked through the airport — he'd come through it so many times, that nearly everything about it was familiar.

"They're good. Daniel got a promotion," she told him, "and Hallie just had her first ballet recital."

"You've got lots of pictures for me, I hope?" He asked with a laugh.

"Of course." She said — then, "soo…" pausing for dramatic effect. "How's Allie?"

"Mom told you," he sighed — it wasn't even a question. He supposed he wasn't really surprised.

She shrugged unapologetically. "You know how Allie's mother tells mom everything, and mom tells _me_ everything."

He did know.

"So?" She promoted when he didn't offer up any information, "what happened? I guess Allie brushed over most of the details with her mother."

"Nothing _happened_." It was true…mostly. And wasn't that the point?

"Nothing ever happens, Jack," she pointed out. Kim had been telling Jack to pull the plug on the relationship for years, and not a single one of those reasons was because she disliked Allie. In fact, she loved her like the sister she'd never had but it didn't necessarily follow that she thought that the pair were in any way suited to one another.

"I know." He sounded resigned, thinking how it would be nice if the floor would up open up and swallow him whole — anything was better than the conversations he knew his sister was going to force him into on this trip.

"You do?" She was surprised —

"I know you've been saying this for years, I guess… I just didn't want to hear it."

"So?" She asked again, as they stood beside the baggage carousel — watching as the conveyor-belt squeaked loudly by — an assortment of brightly-colored luggage parading around in circles as they waited for Jack's nondescript navy suitcase, heavy with the gifts he'd brought for his nieces and nephews.

"We're not broken up, exactly." He admitted finally, wishing desperately that this conversation could continue without his involvement.

"So what are you exactly?" She pressed, "like on pause, or something?"

"Allie and I have been on pause for years." He shook his head, it was sad how true the statement was, and that he it had taken him this long to really notice. "We're both so little invested in it that we almost forget it's even there when we're apart," he sounded frustrated, and maybe a little resigned. "It's not a long distance relationship… it's a relationship that stops completely when physical distance is between us, which is like fifty weeks out of the year."

She nodded, biting back her tongue. She wasn't going to say _I told you so,_ even if it was true, she was the nice sibling (or so she liked to claim). But she really had been saying this for years.

"So, what seems to be the issue now?"

He spotted his suitcase finally coming around and used it an excuse to briefly escape the conversation. Grabbing it off the conveyor belt and pulling the handle up out of it, dragging it on it's wheels behind him.

"You coming?" He asked her as he started towards the exit.

" _Jack_?" She said pointedly, the words _answer me_ hung almost visibly in the air between them.

When he didn't respond she spun around on her heel in front of him, stopping them in their tracks — her neck tilted back slightly as she looked up at him.

"I know that face, Jackson. Don't you dare try to lie to me."

He rolled his eyes, but at her piercing brown gaze knew it was pointless. Of all the people in their family, she had been born with the most singular gift of wheedling things out of him.

"It used to be enough." He paused, and then, switching to a different trail of thought, "What Allie and I have is… it's _easy_ , and it's… uncomplicated."

"But not enough?" She picked up his forgotten thread.

"I don't know, Kim," he sighed, running a hand across his jaw, pausing for words. "It just feels like when you're _with_ someone, being apart should be… difficult, not the easiest thing in the world."

He looked suddenly uncomfortable, unable to meet her eyes, and the light-bulb went off over her head.

"There's somebody else, isn't there?" It was hardly even a question.

"…when did my poker face get so bad," he muttered under his breath, "what kind of an FBI agent am I, anyway?" But he didn't deny it.

"Mom's waiting," he reminded her a minute later, and they picked their pace up again.

"Who is she?" Kim pestered — she could be annoyingly persistent, and she knew she would get the information out of him eventually. Probably sooner rather than later.

Jack pretended he hadn't heard her, but deep down knew that resistance was ultimately futile.

"I'm not going to let this go," she pointed out when he still hadn't said anything. "Or would you rather do this in the car? With mom listening to every word?"

When he groaned she knew she had him.

"It doesn't matter," he finally admitted, "she is… off limits."

He'd been telling himself the same thing practically every single day for six months now, but so far it hadn't made a difference. Whatever he felt for Sue Thomas seemed to be growing continually stronger by the day, and he knew he would be in very real danger if he couldn't get it to slow down or reverse somehow. He wanted to laugh, if he had any control over that he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

"You work together." She guessed.

 _Got it in one_ , "Yeah."

"And what is she _like_? 'You work together' is not a description that satisfies my unending curiosity."

The automatic doors at the pick-up area opened and they were hit by a blast of icy Milwaukee air, snow flurrying around them, sticking to their hair and clothes.

"Can we do this later?" Jack asked with a sigh — knowing that no matter how hard he tried, _later_ was definitely going to come. He pulled his coat tighter around himself, eyes searching for their mom's van.

"Don't think that I'll forget, Jackson, because I won't."

"I wouldn't dream of it," He muttered, as they approached their mother's silver mini-van.

"Good." She said, as she pulled open the side door and climbed in.

Jack deposited his bags in the back and then slid in the front passenger seat. "Hey, mom." He said with a smile, before they exchanged an awkward hug over the center console.

"Good to see you, Jackson." She said, squeezing him tighter and pressing a kiss to his cheek. "How was the flight?" she asked, skillfully navigating out of the airport's pick-up/drop-off area before merging onto the highway.

"It was fine. Almost didn't make it to the airport in time, lot's of D.C. traffic." His lips quirked into a small smile as he remembered the clogged streets, and the taxi ride where he had opened the gift Sue had given him (two days earlier than technically allowed). An identical gift to the one _he_ had gotten _her_.

"Well, I'm glad you made it okay." She said.

"How's dad?"

" _Guarding_ the cinnamon rolls as we speak," she said with a laugh.

"So I'll be lucky if there are any left for me when we get there?" He asked lightly.

She just chuckled in response.

It was an hour and a half drive north from the airport to the Hudson's hometown of Appleton Wisconsin, which turned out to be plenty of time for Mrs. Hudson to lament how little she got to see her middle child, to wonder if he was eating well enough, and to hope that his job wasn't too dangerous. (She frequently told herself that Jack's was mostly a desk job, and was all too happy when he went along with that fantasy, constantly downplaying the level of field work and danger he frequently found himself in.)

He was grateful when she never once touched on the subject of his love life, though he knew it was likely to come up over his five day holiday, probably repeatedly, and with many different family members. His father especially had always had a soft spot for Jack's childhood sweetheart, and Jack wasn't dumb enough to get complacent, or to think he was going to be able to avoid the subject for very long.


	2. Chapter 2

The air in the Hudson house smelled distinctly of Christmas — cinnamon rolls, holly, spruce, and just a hint of pumpkin. Jack stared up at the ceiling in his childhood bedroom, and thought how it was odd that the scent could be both achingly familiarly and yet strangely foreign.

There was something about lying in the bed from his adolescence — his sister and her husband in the room next door, his parents down the hall — that made him feel like a teenager dealing with his first crush on a girl, and not the experienced man of 34 and accomplished FBI agent that he actually was. How many nights had he lain awake in this very spot, imagining constellations in the popcorn ceiling, thinking about Allie? Or some other girl he'd had a passing interest in? Too many to count, probably.

What was it about being a teenager — that rush of feelings that overwhelms your every thought when the girl you like simply glances in your direction — that makes _who-likes-who_ seem like the most supremely important thing in the world?

He blinked in the darkness, trying and failing to not think about one Susan Thomas, and the smile that lit up her face when he'd last seen her just a few short hours ago — beaming up at him, shining light into the dark corners of his soul.

She was too kind, too sweet, too good for this world.

All he'd done was sign two simple words — HAPPY CHRISTMAS — but the joy that had shone out of her radiant face in response and you'd have thought he'd given her the moon.

Since the very moment he first laid eyes on her — charging into the Domestic Terrorism bullpen with Levi in tow, demanding a transfer and to be taken seriously — only to leave awkwardly, a deep blush staining her cheeks, when she realized she was in the wrong office — he'd been completely and utterly captivated. Entranced.

He'd sought her out at lunch that first day — it was as good a guess as any that as a newbie she'd eat in the cafeteria — he used Levi as an excuse, saying something lame about dogs that he couldn't even remember now; but the truth was that there was something about her, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on, but _something_... something inside of him that insisted he had to meet her. Had to _know_ her.

Jack considered himself to be a fairly practical guy — he'd never been overly sentimental or romantic — certainly he'd never believed in love at first sight. (He supposed that somewhere in the back of his mind he always assumed that someday, eventually, he would settle down with Allie, when both of their careers slowed down enough that they actually had the time to devote to a serious relationship.)

But now — faced with a barrage of emotions he was uncertain he'd ever felt before — Jack was forced to admit that he wasn't sure of anything at all.

In fact, the only thing he could be certain of was that in the six months since he'd met Sue Thomas, Jack felt his life changing focus — turning upside down; his path shifting into something new and unfamiliar. For the first time in his life the plan was unclear, and he wasn't sure where he was going, what he was doing, or even, really, what he wanted.

He tossed and turned for most of the night, sleeping fitfully when he managed to sleep at all.

When he did sleep, he dreamed he was on a gravel path, walking through a forest — when he suddenly reached a point where a second path jutted off to the side from the first. The way had been mostly straight and easy until then — _safe_ — and he could see so far ahead that he thought he knew where it was going; but the path that diverged from the first had been hidden by a copse of trees, so that he he couldn't see it until he was nearly right on top of it. The new path was denser than the first — a littler darker — but with the most beautiful golden rays of sunshine he'd ever seen filtering down through the leaves high above. The flowers that way seemed wilder and more colorful, the grass greener, the bird songs louder — but it was also curved, and dipped down into a low hill, so that he couldn't see much beyond the start of it into the valley beyond.

He stood at the intersection — frozen and uncertain — paralyzed with indecision, until eventually he woke up.

Jack blinked up at his ceiling in the darkness — 4:15am and he was wide awake. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as the last vestiges of the strange, bright dream slipped into the ether of his mind. He sighed, rolling out of bed and slipping silently into the hall outside his room, knowing there was no way he was going to be able to find unconsciousness again this night.


	3. Chapter 3

The kitchen was mostly unchanged since his youth, Jack noticed, as he leaned back against the counter and waited for the coffee to brew. There was a deep scratch in the hardwood floor in front of the oven from when his brother Mark had decided to roller blade in the house; a small stain on the ceiling from when someone had dropped a tub of mayonnaise on the floor and it splattered eight feet into the air, and no amount of scrubbing or painting would make it go away — it would always be a slightly different shade of white there than the rest of the of it.

The table in the breakfast nook was in good shape still, but obviously well used — and Jack could recall countless days of sitting right there — the sun streaming in through the windows behind him, warming the back of his neck — doing his homework; teasing his sister, or being teased by his brother; enthusiastically discussing a hockey game with his father; enjoying a stack of his mom's famous blueberry pancakes on a Saturday morning.

He was roused from his thoughts by the sound of his sister shuffling into the kitchen, her feet stuffed into the fuzzy, rainbow colored slippers she'd loved so much at sixteen. "Couldn't sleep," she asked, bleary eyed, as she leaned against the counter next to him.

"Still on DC time, I guess," Jack said with a shrug as he turned and pulled two coffee mugs out of the cabinet.

"Are you usually up at," Kim glanced at the glowing digital numbers of the stove clock and added an hour, "5:30 in the morning?"

"Sometimes." He said, pouring the hot liquid into each of their mugs, before stirring a little sugar into both and then handing her one.

"But not usually?" She asked, regarding her brother shrewdly through the rising steam off the mug in her hands.

Jack groaned, rolling his eyes — it was far too early in the morning for a psychoanalysis from Dr. Hudson-James, MD.

He carried his coffee over to the breakfast nook and plopped down into the worn, wooden bench, leaning his head back against the wall. He shut his eyes tiredly, and in more than just a physical exhaustion.

He didn't want to think about the reasons he couldn't sleep — in fact he wanted to steer clear of the topic altogether if he could. He couldn't afford to admit it out loud — he just knew that saying the words would give them power over him, somehow. Make them more unavoidable — more _real_.

"Jack," he heard his sister's voice, whispered from across table, her tone soft and comforting, reminding him of all the reasons he could never say no to her. "What you're doing isn't healthy. You have to talk to someone. It doesn't have to be me — but please tell me there's someone. Bobby, maybe?"

Jack ran a hand through his messy, morning hair, and took a deep gulp of coffee. Jack knew Bobby would listen to him if he really wanted to talk — but the problem was that he _didn't_ want to — but maybe Kim was right, in that he needed to. And wouldn't she be the most logical choice? — he really didn't want to talk to anybody he worked with about this, but if he didn't say it to somebody soon he knew his best friend would likely be subjected to a drunken, love-sick rambling from him, probably sooner rather than later — and really, wasn't this the far better option?

"I don't want to put this on Bobby," Jack admitted finally, with a deep exhale, "we work together, and I don't want it to be weird; besides, Bobby's not… always the most subtle."

"I see," she said, taking a long sip of her coffee, and feeling the last vestiges of her drowsiness fall away.

"Yeah." He agreed, but didn't offer up anything else.

"So?" She prompted, after a long moment of staring at her brother in silence.

"So, _what_?"

"You know _what_ , Jack." Kim groused — just because she knew how to get Jack to open up didn't mean it wasn't like pulling teeth every single time.

"I don't know where to start." He admitted, rubbing his hand down his face, cupping his jaw in thought.

"Start at the beginning… Or tell me what happened with Allie — what _really_ happened with Allie."

He sighed, if he was going to do this he might as well be committed to being honest. Kim had rarely given him bad advice, and she always guarded the things told to her in confidence as closely to the chest as if they were the most classified of military secrets. He knew she would never tell a soul the things he said to her here without his explicit permission.

"Allie and I are… I don't know, heading in two different directions, I guess." He said with a sigh.

His eyes focused on the dark outline of the large Oak tree in the backyard through the window — it was under it's branches that Allie had first kissed him. Fourteen years old Allie — determined, go-getter, always-knows-what-she-wants, Allie — tossing pebbles at young Jack's second story window in the middle of the night, begging him to come out and watch the meteor shower with her; dragging him by the hand through the sliding glass doors and into his own backyard, as they lay down in the soft grass, heads up toward the sky, watching the stars burn, falling towards the earth.

He remembered looking over at her under that tree, dark hair splayed about her head in a halo of messy, wild curls — like an angel with fire in her eyes — and Jack knew in that moment that he would love her forever. She bit her lip in a shy grin when she turned and caught him staring — and Jack was sure she'd never done a thing shyly in her life, before or since — and she leaned over and gave him a whisper-soft peck on the lips, before letting out a peal of laughter that reminded him of bells ringing at Christmastime — and then jumping up, rushing madly through the Hudson's back-gate, and down the two blocks back to her own house, giggling the whole way — leaving Jack with a stupid, love-struck grin on his young face.

So long ago that seemed now — it was like it hadn't happened to him at all, but someone else — a previous life. He couldn't recapture those feelings now even if he wanted to — and the craziest thing of all was that he was that he was pretty sure that he no longer _did_ want to.

"We met up in New York a few weeks ago," he finally said, "we hadn't seen, or really even talked to each other in a couple of months. But I called, lied, told her I was coming up for work and that we should have dinner. I didn't want her to know that I drove up _just_ to see her."

"Why wouldn't you want her to know?"

"Because I didn't want her to think my coming up was a big deal. We've been… pretty casual for a while, I guess — we get together when it's convenient, but we don't usually make plans just to see each other, so…"

"So you went to New York, and you didn't want her to think it was a big deal…?" She prompted when she noticed Jack's gaze flicker back out the window again, lost in some thought.

"I just… I'd been thinking about Allie a lot lately, I guess. Because… I don't know…" he sighed, he'd never been very good at the whole 'sharing your feelings' thing that Kim was so fond of she'd made it her career, "because she's always been at the back of my mind. We've... always been a _someday_ couple. 'Someday when things slow down'… 'someday when our careers are off the ground'… On and off, and when it was _on_ it was serious. And for a long time I think we both thought that it would always be there, and that eventually it would be the two of us, you know?

"But recently…" his eyes flicked once again towards the window, and his hand ran across his jaw, "I've just had this feeling like… I don't know what I'm doing, or where I'm going… and I realized when I looked at my future, I wasn't sure that I saw Allie there anymore at all. So I wanted to get together, and see… see if there was still even anything there.

"So we were at dinner," he said, eyes still fixed out the window over his sister's shoulder, "—having a nice enough time, like old times almost — and I thought, I dunno, _maybe_ … I mean, I didn't feel anything like with—" he shook his head, dispelling the image of Sue's face from his mind — for the moment at least, "but still, there was a little something there. The topic naturally steered itself to plans of the future, so I took the opening, and asked, you know, _where do you see "us" in five or ten years?_ … but she got defensive, said that she wasn't ready to get more serious, the same old spiel that I've heard a dozen times — and then she told me she wanted us to take a break — a real break. Not a _lets-hook-up-if-we-happen-to-see-each-other_ break, but an honest-to-God, no-communication allowed, pre-permanent breakup, break."

The sky was beginning to lighten just slightly out the window, lighter blues and pinks bleeding into the indigo sky on the horizon — and Jack thought it was strange how he felt lighter now too, instead of — well, whatever you're supposed to feel when your childhood sweetheart, and on-and-off girlfriend of twenty years tells you it's probably over.

He took a long sip of his still-warm coffee, eyes glancing back and forth between the window and his sister — it was so much easier to talk about his love life when he didn't have to look her in the eye. It was a subject that always made him slightly uncomfortable, no matter who he was talking to.

"You know what's weird?" He asked, but it was obviously a rhetorical question, "I felt… _relieved_. Relived that she took the decision out of my hands. I wanted to find out the truth, to ask the question — _do we still have a future together_ — and she answered it for me. But instead of being upset I was almost _happy_ about it… and if that doesn't say something about our relationship then I don't know what does…" He shrugged like it was nothing, gulping down the rest of his coffee, before getting up to pour himself another one.

He could feel her eyes trained on his back as he went. Could almost sense her studying him in the silence — gearing up to say something.

He was sure questions about Sue were coming soon— knew no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to avoid them.

But then, did he even really _want_ to?

Every day that he he learned something new about her — every time some new facet of her personality revealed itself; Every time she scrunched up her face in an adorable smile, or laughed deeply, or did something genuinely kind for someone who didn't deserve it — he felt _whatever_ his feelings were for her grow — building — as he tried even more desperately to keep silent.

Maybe it would be a relief to finally get some of it off his chest. Every new day he spent in her presence he could feel the words bottling slowly up inside of him, waiting to explode


	4. Chapter 4

As Jack stood at the kitchen counter stirring a spoonful of sugar into his second cup of coffee, he could feel Kim's eyes on his back, appraising him in her silence.

When he turned around he found her elbows rested on the table in front of her; long, pale fingers steepled against her chin, her brown eyes knowing as she regarded him from across the room.

"What?" He groaned.

She tapped her index fingers against her lips in a thoughtful gesture, tilting her head a fraction to the side as she watched him, voice as soft as her eyes, "you know _what_ , Jack," she said.

He let out a deep sigh as he sat back across from her, eyes down at the mug in his hands. "Yeah," he said, "I guess so."

A clock ticked on the wall, counting the seconds that went by in silence. Jack's eyes shifted from his mug to the window, his fingers fidgeting, tapping a tune only he could hear against the wooden tabletop.

He knew it was ridiculous that he should feel nervous, but the prospect of admitting his feelings aloud to anyone, even the sister he'd always been able to tell anything, made a knot form in the pit of his stomach.

Three full minutes passed with just the sound of the clock in the background, and when it finally became apparent that Jack wasn't going to speak first, Kim broke the silence. "Sooo," she said, dragging out the word until it felt like it had several more syllables than it actually did.

"Are you going to give me something," she complained, tone momentarily every bit that of a younger sister, "or are you going to make me beat the information out of you?"

Jack's lips twitched up slightly, his eyes shifting back to her face. "What do you want to know," he asked, effectively giving her permission to ask whatever questions she wanted. Who knows, he thought, maybe talking about it actually would help, relieve some of the pressure that had built up over six months of constantly biting his tongue.

"Tell me about her," Kim said, "this mystery woman whose been making you re-examine your entire life. Your _future_. You told me about Allie, and while I think it would have ended with the two of you eventually, we both know this didn't really start with Allie. So tell me, what's so special?"

"How much time do you have?" Jack joked, his middle finger tracing the rim of his mug as he tried to conjure words that could possibly do the woman justice. Kim waited patiently for his response as she sipped her drink, watching him.

 _What's so special?_ Jack wondered, _God, where to even start._ He wasn't sure he had the necessary vocabulary to undertake such a task.

"She's… she's good," he said lamely, for lack of a better term — he'd never been overly verbose, but the lack of words now grated on him. "Too good for me."

"Jack," she said softly, "you've made some mistakes, yes," she paused for a moment as all the details he'd told her of his disastrous relationship with Kristen ran through her mind, "but you're a good man, with a good heart. Don't sell yourself short."

Jack let out a sound under his breath that could almost be called a chuckle. He understood what she was trying to say, but she was wrong, because she didn't understand. But then, how could he expect her to?

"No, really. I'm serious, Kimmy. Just, take a second…" he paused, "and try to think of the best person you know. The kindest, most generous, sweetest person you've ever met."

"Nana Marie," Kim whispered without even having to stop to think about it, as she remembered their mother's mother, two years gone in the spring. She hadn't had it easy, their grandmother, widowed in her thirties, with three young children to take care of. But she'd been devoted. Devoted to her children — to being the best mother and then grandmother she could be — and devoted to the memory of her long lost husband. And through it all, she always had a smile on her face, and never an unkind word to say about anyone. Forever able to see light when others saw only darkness.

"I swear, Kim," Jack said, voice slightly hoarse as he tried to make her understand, "I think even _including_ Grandma Marie, Sue Thomas may be the best person I've ever known."

"High praise," she raised a dark, skeptical Hudson eyebrow at her brother across the table, turning his words over in her mind.

"What are you thinking?" He groaned.

"I'm just wondering how biased you are," she said, taking another sip of her now tepid drink.

"I know what it sounds like," he said, rolling his eyes at himself. "Guy with a crush thinks the girl hung the moon. But… I mean it. I've never met anyone so able — and not just able but… determined… to see the good, in everything and everyone. Smart… funny… generous," to Kim, Jack's eyes seemed suddenly very far away, seeing things that she could only guess at. "Strong in the face of opposition… kind to those against her. Slow to anger — quick to forgive…" he trailed off, shaking his head as though to dispel the images in his mind, and went silent.

"This Sue Thomas," she said slowly, "she sounds like quite a lady." Kim cocked her head slightly to one side as she appraised her brother with critical eyes. She'd never heard him wax so poetic before, about anything or anyone. It was very nearly out of character.

"Yeah," he sighed with a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head. "Yeah, she is."

"And you work together?" She said, prompting him to continue. To finally get it off his chest. There was a tiredness in his eyes that led her to believe that he'd been struggling with these feelings for longer than he'd care to admit — and she doubted very seriously if he'd even admitted to himself yet how deep those feelings likely ran.

"We do," was all he said, his voice as distant as his eyes, his mind flashing through a slideshow of snapshots and memories.

It was ridiculous that it was only just now hitting him, but he realized abruptly just how monumentally screwed he actually was.

Of all the women in the world, why did it have to be her?

But then, how could he not like her? How could _anyone_ not? As far as he could tell, there wasn't a single thing about her that was unlike _able._

"How long has she been with the team?" Kim asked, trying to draw him back from his wayward thoughts.

"About six months," he said absently. "Maybe a little more."

"And…" Kim paused hesitantly, "how does _she_ feel about _you_?"

Jack's eyes snapped back to Kim's in surprise. "What?" he asked tonelessly. "I don't…" he tried to pull words together into a coherent response. "I'm her boss, Kim. The team leader and her training agent. I don't know how she feels, it would be inappropriate for me to even ask h—"

"No, no, no," Kim interrupted him with a shake of her head, "I know that. I didn't think you would have discussed this, I more mean… ah," she waved her hand in a twirling motion, getting very much into her element, "how does she _behave_ around you? Does she like you? Respect you? Are you friends, or is there more of a boss/employee dynamic going on, that sort of thing?"

"That's kind of a lot at once," he pointed out, feeling a little ambushed, and wondering if this is what it felt like to be on the other side of the table in the interrogation room.

"Okay, fair," she conceded, and, leaning forward slightly with hands resting clasped together on the table, she said, "so just answer me this: how would you define the relationship the two of you currently have, and how do you think _she_ would define it?"

"Ah… uh—" Jack floundered, rubbing his chin in thought. "We're… friends," he said, suddenly unsure. He shook his head, feeling foolish. Of course they were friends, you didn't give someone who was just a coworker a Christmas present. (And, though he wasn't sure if she could say the same, she was the only coworker he had given something this year.) "We're friends," he repeated with more confidence.

"Well… that's a good place to start, at least." She said, eyes raking over Jack's features. There was a war of conflicting emotions on his face, and she could see that he was deciding then and there how honest he was comfortable being.

"What do I do, Kimmy?" He asked finally. "How do I… _stop_?"

He didn't have to say the words for her to know exactly what he meant.

She wanted to tell him that a crush was always the strongest in the beginning — how feelings had a tendency to fade after a while. That it would get easier if he just gave it some time.

And if he was anyone else, maybe she would have — if she didn't know him quite so well. She was better than most at reading people, and she'd had her whole life to learn her brother's expressions.

She wanted to tell him it would get easier… but she wasn't sure she could. Wasn't sure it would be true. And she wouldn't lie to him.

"Jack…" she sighed, "I'm not sure you can stop. I'm not sure that's how this works."

"I can't let this get any more serious. It needs to stop. Here. Now."

"Jack," she said softly, but with a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice, "do you even hear yourself? You sound like you're talking about Mother Teresa for all the praise you've heaped on this girl… you're halfway in love with her already — and pretending to yourself that you're feelings are less serious than they are isn't going to make them go away. All it's going to do mask them, until one day they blindside you, slam into you like a ton of bricks, and knock you on your ass…" she paused for moment, then said gently, "you can't wish away your feelings. It doesn't work like that."

"It… it _has_ to," his voice was so quiet she could only barely make out the words, and her stomach sank at the sight of his obvious pain.

"Does it really?" She said, "exactly how strict _is_ the FBI's non-fraternization policy, anyway?"

"Pretty strict."

"Okay…" she said, index finger tracing the rim of her mug as she silently debated the pros and cons of saying aloud what she was thinking. She didn't want to give him bad advice, but the thing was… she couldn't be sure what she wanted to say was necessarily _good_ advice either.

He sighed at the look on her face, and she was reminded how good he'd gotten at reading people too. "Tell me," he said eventually.

"Is she worth it?" She asked. His answer would be her deciding factor.

"I—" his voice caught slightly in his throat. His hand started to move up instinctively to cup his jaw, but before it reached its destination it fell uselessly back to the table. Defeated. "Yes," he said, tone full of conviction. "She is."

She nodded, hoping she was making the right decision. "Okay, here's the thing," she said, "it's not likely that the two of you are going to work together forever. Eventually one of you is going to get promoted, or transfer out, or decide that the FBI is too exciting and quit to take up oil painting or professional skiing or something."

"Professional skiing?" Jack said with quirked lips, and a single raised eyebrow,

"Or something," she waved her hand, "first thing that popped into my head. Not important. What's important is that _this_ — this limbo you're currently in, FBI regulations looming over you with threat of termination — isn't going to last forever." She hesitated for a moment, then, "I… hate the thought that I might be giving you bad advice, and I hate the idea of you putting your personal life on hold for a maybe. Less than a maybe, really — more of a distant hope for the future. But… if you're serious — if she's really worth it — and if you think there's a good chance she might feel the same way — then my advice to you would be this: wait."

"Wait?"

"Yes," she said, "don't do anything drastic right now. Just… wait. And while you're waiting, be her friend; make her laugh. Be there for her. Make sure she knows — that she really _knows_ — that she can always count on you… And, this part's important: don't date around _while_ you're waiting."

She paused for a moment, before continuing, "and if, after some time your feelings start to fade, or if you realize maybe she's not _it_ , you haven't thrown your career away for nothing. Or, if they haven't faded," as silently, she expected they wouldn't, "then when it's over — when you're finally free of the FBI regulations that are breathing down your neck — you can give it a shot. A real _shot_ to see if you can make it work."

Jack opened and closed his mouth silently, trying to think of something — _anything_ — to say. He wanted to deny, deny, _deny_. He'd been in denial for so long now that it was almost habit — his instinctive response. He wanted to point out that she'd said not to do anything drastic, but putting his love life on hold while he waited for a woman he wasn't sure would ever like him back _sounded_ awful drastic to him. He wanted to tell her it wasn't as serious as she was making it out to be. Yeah, he'd said she was _worth it_ , he'd been honest about _liking_ her — but it's not like he'd admitted to being in love with her.

In truth, he didn't think he actually _was_ in love with her.

Though, if he was being honest with himself, he knew it wouldn't take much.

She was so… so… _everything_. With even the slightest provocation — the tiniest hint that what he was feeling was reciprocated — he'd be so far gone he would never be able to return.

It struck him suddenly, like he could see the long future laid out in front of him: she was going to _devastate_ him someday. Ruin him for all other women.

No, he wasn't in love with her, not yet. But it was only a matter of time.

He nodded mutely, swallowing the lump that rose unbidden in his throat. He was done lying to himself, he decided. "Maybe I will," he said honestly, voice unexpectedly hoarse. "Maybe I will."

* * *

 **A/N: Apologies for how long it's taken me to update this fic. The truth is, I find writing dialog incredibly difficult, and this fic is more dialog-heavy than anything I think I've written before. Most of my stuff tends to be more introspective; emotional. Entire conversations spoken with just a touch, or a glance. This story has really been kicking the crap out of me, but I think it's worth it. Plus, I kinda don't hate how it's turning out... it's just taking me longer than I hoped to get there.**

 **Anyway, I hope this chapter was worth the wait. Thanks for sticking with it!**


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